Mentor Transcript: Elementary (Tone Bars, Pin Maps, Vacations on School Days, Non-Montessori Child in Upper El)

Transcription

1 10/14/10 Mentor Transcript: Elementary (Tone Bars, Pin Maps, Vacations on School Days, Non-Montessori Child in Upper El) Good evening R. I have not been doing much music in my class. I was not trained to use the tone bars but would like to R know how to? Also could you suggest some songs I could listen to and teach the elementary children? I would suggest that you contact Sanford Jones. I am looking up his it will take one second Hi D OK here it is: Sanford was the president of NAMTA and was an AMI trainer for many years. But his background and education were first in music. He has wonderful CDs with songs that your class can learn. As for the tone bars, that's a two day presentation. Sanford will likely be presenting this work at the Summer Institute in June at MTIPS. I will be sending info about next summer shortly. Hi Wendy. It is my first time. I'm going to watch and read a bit. Fine. It is good to have you. Were you at the Summer Institute? Yes. I attended the literature, writing and science workshops.

2 I was thinking that it might be you. I hope things are going well. They are. It took me awhile to establish a routine. I enjoy working with the 9 12 group after working with the 6 9 group for about 8 years is a totally different animal for sure. C OK, any questions from the group? Otherwise I can go on to pre submitted questions. I'll give you a minute and then go on. Tone Bars. How important is it to have them in the classroom? We have to remember that music is not an extra or an add on, or worse yet, an interruption to the developing child. Quite the contrary actually. All of the children love to sing and participate in musical activities. The tone bars are the key to understanding written music. We don t have to be musical experts. If you aren t ready to use the tone bars, simply teach songs. Any teacher can do this. But you really must get to the tone bars. However.even though all of our teachers have AMI training, we were still intimidated by the tone bar work and were not very successful implementing their use. Sanford Jones, who I just mentioned, mentored us along until we began to feel more secure. He also showed us many necessary intermediate steps between some of what we were given in the training in order for the children to be more successful. I cannot recommend attending a workshop with him enough! You can even organize one in your area with a couple of other schools. Or attend the MTIPS Summer Institute. Sanford will be

3 presenting there again this year. Co Is there a scope and sequence for 9 12? D C Co, there is nothing official besides our albums. I have made a list of lessons and topics that I have to cover for public curriculum, but that is in my region. Things vary from place to place. You can contact me if you would like a copy of it. Sorry it took me so long to answer your question. Have you ever worked with a child who has OCD and an anxiety disorder? Yes I have, but the child had a raft of other issues that made the OCD seem almost pedestrian in comparison. Are you having difficulty with a child with this disorder? My student is 10 years old and was diagnosed at the beginning of last year. I've really had to be creative in order to help her memorize her math facts. And she has to have them memorized because her lack of certainty makes it impossible for her to do long multiplication. But I've found a way. Now I'm looking for a way to teach her editing. If you can be patient and creative, you will find you learn so much about teaching from kids who cause you to get out of the box. I've heard pin maps are no longer presented in the training. True? I have heard this as well. Still typing... I was talking to Sanford Jones about this earlier in the week. I don't know if this has been taken out of the training or not. But we use them. I think that the key is not to let the children take the pin maps out and

4 just put all of the flags in. It needs to be a memorization exercise. Who can memorize 40 countries of Africa at once? The children should choose no more than ten flags. Put them in their places until they can remember where they go without the atlas. Then practice saying the names without the flags. When they are successful they can move on. If we let them just put the all the flags in, it is a waste of time. I have found the kids just play around with them. If the children are not using them as you have instructed, tell them to put the work away. This is your responsibility as the teacher. Welcome DA Do you have a question tonight? We have been chatting about pin maps C But isn't some exploration important? There is not really that much to EXPLORE with pin maps. It is a pretty straightforward material. Learn the names and then move on. D Would you ever have them use the pin maps with just the water flags after a lesson on rivers? Or use the desert, mountain and ocean flags after the "Protection of the Atmosphere" lesson? Definitely. This makes the work real. And there are so many things to explore once they know the names. I am going to post a rather long question that was pre submitted. But feel free to post questions as we go along wendyc(c) Hello, Wendy, I had a question for the ask a mentor

5 program. I could use some advice on how to help parents understand that even though the children pursue individual lessons, they really miss a lot when the parents decide to have them miss school days in favor of other activities. Last year we had over half the elementary families take vacations during the fall semester. The class was very disrupted until after Thanksgiving. We offered to provide a fall break, but less than half the families said they would use that time for vacations. This year several families have shortened the number of days they take their children out, after I wrote a newsletter article about the impact of interruptions on the children and the class. However, I don't think they really understand how the children perceive taking days out of school when they should be in attendance. Also, we had a family withdraw last year because we didn't support their child missing school on a regular basis to attend equestrian events in which she was competing. I was baffled that they now have these competitions on school days, even for elementary age children, but that seems to be the case. What recommendations would you make about unexcused absences? It is extremely uncomfortable to see the children put in the middle of this conflict. Yet I know the parents really don't want teachers who rejoice when their children are absent! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and advice. I think that you have done what you can. We used to be very heavy handed with parents when they took their children out of school. But it strains the relationship mightily and there is always another family right behind that wants to do the same thing.

6 The teachers and administration should continue to emphasize the importance of consistent school attendance. And because new families continue to enter the school, it is a refrain that must be annually resurrected. There are certainly some circumstances where I have felt that the life experience the child can get is worth the time missed. But quite often this is not the case. It was just a more convenient time for the family to vacation. That is hard to swallow. In the end, I have not found that it is worth losing a family over unless it is persistent. As for the equestrian lessons. I am baffled also. Why are these offered during the school day? It is an uphill battle for sure. I think we have to keep clarifying for parents what it says when they take their children out for something that is not a unique opportunity. Any other live questions or should I go on with presubmitted? Ok on to pre subs. One moment. How do you get children to engage in deeper work rather than just grazing the surface? In the beginning you have to prime the pump. Make suggestions of things that they can follow up with. If it is not part of the class culture yet, you have to help the children see how exciting it can be to really get engaged before you can expect them to take it on their own. Hi, J Still typing, C

7 J Hi Wendy, nice to be back Hope your year is going well! J Ok so far. Can't ask for more than that first thing in the year. Back to the previous question: This is not always enough, just making suggestions. If the children still do not respond, you have to give some assignments for follow up, no choice. And do some of it with them. Let them work at your lesson table, or be with them at their tables as they do what you have asked. Then you can help them to dig in deeper. J C C, would you like me to address any particular area of the curriculum with regard to this? Perceived choice with a variety of options. I think that you are addressing how to get kids started. This is the ticket. Sometimes I think that we mistakenly believe we are not supposed to give direct instruction because the training emphasizes so strongly the freedom of choice. But we must do what is successful. And sometimes that is far less than total freedom! History. The kids seem to get stuck on wars, weapons and such, especially the boys. But they are not exactly learning anything. If you sit down with them when they are reading the books you will not find in difficult to engage them in conversation. still typing... Once you engage them, you may get a sense of some other aspects of war and the collision of civilizations that interest them. Give them some questions that they need to find the answers for. No choice again here. For instance, what caused these two groups to

8 J C D begin fighting? What was the final result in terms of land ownership? Were mercenaries used? etc... Let them know you are going to gather them in a couple of days to hear the answers. Possibly language? In language, there are so many different areas. I think that one important aspect we need to address is the lack of input. This is a reason that children don't want to write. If they haven't heard beautiful, serious, sad, well written letters of many different emotions, we can't expect them to be that interested in writing letters of any substance. So we first have to do a lot of reading to the children. That can stir a much deeper interest in the children. If you told them that you were going to read one letter to them each day, I have found that they love to come to listen. The letters written from the Alamo are of particular interest to them. And so moving to read. And, you're saying that's not too much direction/teaching? No. If the children are not working, they need direction. It is as simple as that. Unless you are not presenting lessons. Then you simply need to do more presenting and see if that gets them working. But if not, tell them what to do. Period. Get them started and then you can back off. Currently, I have 14 students in my 9 12 class. I had a potential child visit half day today. He watched as I met with small groups. It is very different inviting an older child to visit than when I worked with the 6 9

9 year olds. Then I'd take out the iron material and show them congruent, similar and equivalent shapes, or we'd take out the golden beads and do some operations and I'd get an idea of his/her understanding of number value and the operations. I could also see how the child worked with others, etc Now I have a class where I'm bridging the concrete/symbolic work with abstract work. My potential student is going to visit for a full day on Monday. I'm thinking of ways to assess where he is in certain areas and see how he does socially with the others throughout the day. Do you have any other suggestions? I am posting and then answering this because it is long. This is such a challenge. My experience is that the elem classes can absorb new children with relative ease in most cases. The issue you need to consider carefully is whether the parents are ready for the massive cultural shift they are going to experience in a Montessori community. The children can most often make it. But not always so with the parents. I would cover some of the possible bumps in the road and ask how they think they will respond. For instance, what will you say to your son if he comes home and says he doesn't like school? Or that I wasn't nice? Or that he had to miss recess? Or that the other children are not nice to him? As I ask these questions, I make it clear that I don't expect ALL of these things to occur, but some of them probably will and it is best to explore your reactions now before we have made a commitment to each other.

10 J lack of input? J(C) D J, did I address this with the rest of my answer earlier? yep Thank you Wendy, that is helpful. Anyone else with a live topic before we run out of time? J Those are great questions to ask parents up front. The hard thing is that they always answer that they are prepared to deal with it. This line of questioning does not usually reveal out any real info. But it does lay the groundwork for your discussion with them later when it happens. That is pretty much the best you can hope for. If a parent is at your door in 4th grade, you can feel pretty sure that they are desperate because of their last experience. They may not tell you this, but it is likely. People are not making these changes on a whim. So if you at least cover the ground, if they are having trouble with your decisions later, you can refer back to your interview conversation. "This is what we talked about before you enrolled. You assured me that you would be able to support my decisions. It is time for you to support me now. I will be happy to share my rationale for the decision with you because I want you to understand it, but I am not open to debating it with you." Do you normally take many non Montessori children J in upper el? Truth is we are rarely approached with this situation. That is why I am saying at this age, someone who is

11 J looking at alternative educational choices is having some issues. But I always give a family a shot. You just don't know what people are experiencing. If I think we can help. I want to try. So, 9:00. Any last thoughts? So good to have all of you on tonight. I hope to see you next week. And also, please submit questions even if you can't come on. People like to come on and just read other people's questions and answers. It has worked for me often. However, care is needed because certain individuals can disrupt, especially in a small upper el class. I agree. It is a tricky situation. Care is well advised. J J Bye It was good to chat with you again. I enjoy hearing from people that I feel like I am getting to know. I hope the chat remain interactive. I'll try to participate often. Hope to see you next week then. Good night. J Hopefully we can meet at the refresher course. I will be there and I will hunt you down. : )